Wednesday, April 27, 2016

2014 was the warmest year on record. Until 2015. 2015 looks to hold the title until 2016 goes in the books. Massive coral bleaching, accelerated sea level rise. To paraphrase Cedric Coleman, it's hard out there for a denier.

Eric Worrall of the monkey house tries to paper over the gaping hole in the movement's foundation with a "jazz hands" routine about Mahmud Abbas, who took the opportunity presented by a UN signing ceremony for a climate accord to call out Israeli settlements in the occupied territories:

"The Israeli occupation is destroying the
climate in Palestine and the Israeli settlements are destroying nature
in Palestine," Abbas told the gathering of 175 countries signing a
landmark climate deal.

Regardless of your position on the Israel / Palestine situation,
suggesting that Israeli settlements contribute significantly to global
warming is utterly implausible.

Which of course is probably why he didn't say that. He said the occupation was damaging the environment in Palestine, which it most certainly is. Israelis have established over 200 illegal settlements in the West Bank alone. These communities establish themselves strategically to control resources or strategic points and to restrict the development of Palestinian communities. They are not established via any rational planning process, which would certainly not place hundreds of tiny towns, some just campers and trailers running off diesel generators, scattered over thousands of square kilometers. This is indeed destructive to the environment in the West Bank.